Raul Fernando Sendic Rodriguez, Uruguay’s Vice President, has said that economic integration and free trade agreements have played a critical role in boosting Uruguay’s economic growth in recent years.

Addressing the inaugural Global Business Forum on Latin America at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, Mr. Sendic Rodriguez said the country’s membership in Mercosur sub-regional bloc provides it with access to a market that’s 46 times its size, but noted that it would need to continue on the path of economic integration to maintain growth in the future.

"Integration helps smaller economies band together to expand their markets and allow capital to flow across borders. This is why Uruguay has entered in many free-trade agreements, including ones with the countries of the Middle East, the UAE, in particular," he said at the forum, which is being organised by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

During the keynote address, Mr. Sendic Rodriguez shared his perspectives on Uruguay’s potential to forge strong global ties and to strengthen its private sector.

"Uruguay is a small country, only slightly larger than the UAE," he remarked. "Nonetheless, it has successfully quadrupled its GDP since the beginning of this century. This effectively gives Uruguay the highest GDP per capita on the continent, as well as the lowest unemployment rate," he explained.

The country’s public policies were also credited as a key factor that contributed to this progress. In recent years, Uruguay developed social regulations that ensure the welfare of its society. "We worked to create a just society," he affirmed, adding that the country would need to maintain robust economic growth in order to keep such policies in place.

He stated that Uruguay now generates 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, marking its shift from being a net importer to a net exporter of energy.

Uruguay, a net exporter of food, has enhanced the sector using cutting-edge technology that tracks and records information on cattle throughout the entire production and sales processes.

"Uruguay offers contract security, respect for the law, high respect for transparency in transactions, no limit for transfer of capital, and no discrimination between local and international capital in several sectors," the vice president added.

The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry is hosting the Global Business Forum on Latin America on November 9th and 10th at Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, under the theme, "Shifting Synergies". More than 500 prominent stakeholders are taking part in the forum, including heads of state, policymakers, CEOs, business leaders, investors, and industry professionals, in addition to heads of private banks, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity firms.